


Between the Lines

by elfgirl931



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5343995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfgirl931/pseuds/elfgirl931
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Keira's POV, progressing through Jak II-III.) Jak and Keira face all kinds of awkwardness and pain getting in the way of their budding relationship. Will they ever learn to trust each other? Mainly follows game storyline, just explores Keira's feelings through the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story back in 2009, I think? My writing has evolved a lot since then, but I finished it in October of this year and had published on FF.net. People seem to enjoy it so I wanted to share my love of Jak and Daxter here too, even though it's one of my older stories :)

**_Jak and Daxter belongs to and is copyright to Naughty Dog – no copyright infringement intended._ **

Keira straightened her aching back and surveyed her workshop with a sigh. Tools were strewn haphazardly across the floor, and parts from various zoomers littered every surface – the shop looked like a disaster area. She pushed aside one of the many blueprints she'd tacked on the wall through the course of the night, groaning when she saw that the clock read 3 a.m.

After staring at the clock for a moment, Keira realized that she'd been tinkering with her equipment for four straight hours. Even for a natural-born mechanic like herself, that was exhausting. She cracked her knuckles loudly and wiped the sweat off her brow, then let out a sound of frustration when she realized that she'd smeared the grease from her hand all over her forehead. She grouchily twitched aside the curtain that divided the shop and trudged up the narrow stairway that led to her second floor apartment.

When she opened the door, Keira closed her eyes and let out yet another groan, her body sagging with exhaustion. She'd forgotten the party Daxter had decided to throw in her apartment. After "defeating" Kor, he used each and every excuse to celebrate. Granted, it had only been him, Jak, Tess, and a few others, but the ottsel's specialty seemed to be creating spectacularly chaotic messes with very little effort. Keira had to wade through bottles, paper plates, popped balloons, and piles of confetti scattered across the floor.

"When I get my hands on that little hairball…" she muttered, opening the door to her tiny bathroom. She threw all her clothes in a pile and turned on the shower, grateful that the water was still coming out hot. She let the water soothe her aching muscles, but once her physical discomfort faded, she was free to think about what had gotten her upset in the first place.

It certainly wasn't Keira's habit to stay up all night working on her gadgets and zoomers – especially not several at once. Of course, she loved working for hours at a time, but she also liked her sleep. The joy she got from machinery and the exhilaration of the work put her into a different state, one where she could forget all of her problems. Especially Jak.

Just thinking about him made Keira clench her teeth. Strolling up to her garage, not a care in the world, acting as though she should fall on the ground and worship him for saving the city. Of course she was grateful, everyone was, but that didn't give him the right to strut around like he owned it….

_That's really not why you're angry. You're not being fair._

Keira grimaced at the rational little voice in her head. _That's not the only reason I don't want him around right now._ She frowned while scrubbing her hair and tried in vain not to think of the rumors that had been circulating around Haven City as Jak became more and more famous.

It was widely known that the new city Governor Ashelin and the Underground warrior Jak were a great team. They had gone on several missions together in the past, and it was well known how she relied on Jak for support within the new system of government that she was setting up. Gossip swirled in the marketplaces that there was a bit more to their relationship than just business. What a couple they would make, people said. A leader and a warrior, both fierce fighters and dedicated to their causes - quite a handsome pair, the two of them would be.

The idea filled Keira with a painful fury, so sharp and inarticulate that she found herself clutching her bottle of shampoo till the plastic cracked.

"Dammit," she muttered, flinging it to the floor. She whipped a towel off the rack, and roughly dried herself.

After pulling a brush through her hair, Keira stomped into her small bedroom and flicked the switch that brought her bed down from its folded storage in the wall. She put on mismatched pajama shorts and a tank top and flopped onto the bed with her feet at the headboard. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, even though it was 4 a.m. and she was freshly showered.

Everything had always come down to Jak. When they were younger, Keira had tried to hide her feelings for him, believing that it was so cliché to fall for the boy she'd grown up with. She'd also been afraid that her overprotective father would be upset if he found out how she felt. Still, she wasn't sure she'd done a very good cover-up job, if Daxter's teasing were anything to go by.

Keira wished she could go back to those carefree days in Sandover, in spite of the awkwardness. She'd mostly hidden her feelings then, but Jak had returned them… hadn't he? He'd rarely spoken, but he was always so sweet, and could always make her laugh. There was that time that they'd almost kissed atop Gol and Maia's citadel… hadn't they? Lately, Keira was starting to think that that incident had been a product of her own wishful thinking. Just like what had happened at the Naughty Ottsel… was that only weeks ago? Things had been going so well then, and she'd been so sure that they were going to kiss that time.

"Stupid Daxter," muttered Keira, turning over onto her back. But then she sighed, realizing that it probably wasn't the ottsel's fault… just another product of her imagination. Maybe.

Whether Jak had ever returned her feelings or not, it didn't seem to matter anymore. Lately, he became brusque or awkward at best, and surly at worst when he was around Keira. She couldn't get him to talk in those rare moments when they got to be alone, and he always left quickly. Even at the party last night, he'd sat quietly on the couch, nursing his drink in silence. He refused to join in Daxter's bantering, and as the ottsel got more and more drunk, Jak didn't laugh or even smile as he usually would. He'd seemed off in his own world, but more than once, Keira had caught him watching her. When she offered him a cautious smile, Jak quickly averted his eyes and went back to staring at the floor.

There was more than just the frostiness that had suddenly sprung up between them, though. The very first time Keira had laid eyes on Jak after coming to Haven City, she was shocked, to say the least. Not only did he _look_ different… he _felt_ different. It wasn't just that he talked, or had an attitude problem the size of a lurker's appetite – it was his eyes. They burned with some kind of thirst, and she had later heard rumors of darkness in his very veins – circulating just under the talk about his heroism, and of course, about Ashelin.

Keira clenched her fingers against the sheets in frustration. She didn't want to think about those stories. She just wished Jak would at least have the decency to tell her that he was done with her, instead of all the confusing behavior - showing up to her garage at the most ridiculous times, trying to make small talk, and then stalking off just as suddenly.

The next time Keira rolled over to face the clock, she saw that it was 5:30 in the morning. "This is ridiculous," she said, sitting up and resting her head in her hands. Realizing that trying to sleep was useless for the moment, she ambled into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She scooted a pile of balloons off the couch and plopped herself down.

The apartment had no windows on one side, because it faced the stadium, but the other side had one long windowpane that looked down onto the square. It was still dark outside, but she knew the sunrise would be peeking over the city walls soon. It was at once a comforting and unsettling thought. Keira loved to watch the sunrise, but she couldn't believe she hadn't slept all night.

She was about to get lost in her thoughts again when she heard something… something like careful footsteps on the stairs up to her apartment. Keira suddenly remembered that she hadn't closed the bay doors or locked her apartment when she'd come up from the garage. She raced over to her spare tool kit, grabbed the largest wrench she could find, then took a position right beside the door, ready to strike.

 _I bet it's some creep who knows that I live alone_ , she thought grimly. _Probably cleaned my garage out and is coming up for some fun_. She raised the wrench higher, ready to make the intruder regret coming near her apartment.

As the door eased open, Keira took a deep, slow breath, gritted her teeth, and jumped forward, swinging the wrench over her head. She heard a satisfying **whack** as it connected with something, followed by a loud grunt and a string of swearing. Whoever she'd hit fell to the floor, and Keira wasted no time delivering a good kick to the body. A hand shot out to grab her ankle, but she managed to jump backwards, making good use of her kicked-up adrenaline. Her hand hit the light switch, and hard white light suddenly flooded the room.

"Keira, what the _hell_ is wrong with you?" shouted a very familiar, and very angry, voice.

The wrench fell out of her hand. "Jak?" she gasped, completely dumbfounded. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying not to get killed by you," he growled, getting up off the floor and gingerly rubbing around the lump that was forming on his forehead. For a moment, a burning rage seemed to smolder in his eyes, but he blinked a few times, and then they just looked tired. More than that, though, she could see the haunted look on his face that she'd noticed before, but never to such an extent.

Keira tried to get her mind back to the present. "But… but what _are_ you doing here? I thought you were a burglar!" The situation suddenly struck her as much stranger than before. She narrowed her eyes. "What are you doing here?" Her tone grew sharper. "Why are you sneaking into my apartment at this hour?"

Jak leaned against the wall and wouldn't meet her eyes. "I left my comm unit here. I didn't want to wake you." He gestured his head towards the coffee table, and sure enough, the small black box sat overlooked between several bottles and a few scattered streamers.

This explanation only made Keira feel angrier. "So you were just going to sneak in here without saying anything to me, get your communicator, and sneak back out again? Is it really that horrible to talk to me?" As she spoke, her voice got louder until she was shouting. Jak winced, but wouldn't look back at her. A defiant, closed look came over his face.

"I'll just go. I'll come back and get it later."

Once he turned around, Keira's anger subsided a little. "Wait," she said tiredly. He stopped with one foot on the stairs, but didn't turn around. "At least let me get you some ice for your head. It's the least I can do." There was a long pause as Jak stood silently on the stairs, and Keira thought he'd refuse. But at last he turned around, keeping his eyes on the floor.

"Ok," he said quietly, and with an air of awkwardness that caught Keira off guard. He didn't seem to know where to go, and nearly bumped into her when she turned to walk towards the kitchen. She saw him tighten his fists and clench his jaw when he touched her, and heard him suck in a quick breath through his teeth. He slipped past her and dropped down onto the couch, tipping back his head and closing his eyes.

 _Is it really that awful for him to be around me?_ Keira thought testily. She stood in the kitchen, trying to master her hurt feelings, then pulled an ice pack out of the freezer. She started to crush it on the counter, but glanced over the counter and saw that Jak was sound asleep. Her anger drained away completely, and she studied him without worrying about the embarrassment of being caught staring.

Jak looked younger while he was sleeping, with the lines of tension smoothed from his face. His mouth was slightly open as he breathed quietly. Keira walked towards the couch, ice pack in hand, and looked closer at his face. There were dark circles under his eyes, and fine golden stubble dotted his cheeks. He looked exhausted. Her eyes flicked up to his forehead, where she'd smacked him with the wrench. The lump had swollen and bruised around the edges, and part of it was raised under his goggles.

Keira bent down and gently unclipped his goggles, then slipped them carefully off his head. Jak didn't wake, even when some of his hair fell forward onto his face. But when she smoothed it back again and gently pressed the ice pack to his bruise, his eyes flew open. Quicker than thought, his hand clamped around her wrist in a brutal grip, forcing it upwards.

Jak's eyes cleared when he heard Keira's pained gasp, and he immediately let her go. His cheeks reddened, and he leaned forward to put his face in his hands. "I'm sorry," he said in a low voice.

"It's ok," she answered shakily. She picked up the ice pack where it had fallen and set it on Jak's knee. Keira heard him pick up the ice pack and press it to his forehead, but she kept her gaze trained on the coffee table. The silence stretched uncomfortably, until she was sure she'd lose her mind.

It had never been this way between them, this uncomfortable silence and determinedly downturned gazes. Not until Haven. It had been driving Keira crazy for months, and she wished she could be brave enough to break down the that had been built between them. She had no idea how to start, but she was starting to worry that Jak wouldn't even want to try.

Finally, she dared to look at him. He was leaning back on the couch again, the ice pack resting precariously on his forehead. She thought he had fallen asleep again, so she stood to turn the light off. When she turned back toward the couch, though, Jak's eyes were open, and she could practically feel him looking at her in the dark.

Before he could look away, Keira took a deep breath and sat beside him. "Why do we keep doing this, Jak?" she asked softly. For the first time in a while, he didn't look away from her. "We're stuck in some kind of stupid limbo, and I'm really tired of it." She stood up suddenly and began pacing. "You barely talk to me when you're around me, and you… you just… you are driving me crazy! Do you know what I've been doing all night? I've been making a mess of my shop and switching from one project to another just trying to get my mind off you because – "

Her outburst was stopped short when Jak reached out and grasped her wrist, gently this time, but still firmly enough to pull her back down on the couch. "I never told you what happened to me after the rift rider broke apart."

Keira blinked in surprise – that was the last thing she'd expected him to say. It was true - when he'd shown up out of the blue after more than two years, she could hardly believe he was there, then things had happened so quickly and awkwardly that they hadn't had time to talk about anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

_Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own or intend copyright infringement on the Jak and Daxter series. This is a fanfiction written strictly for my own enjoyment._

"Daxter and I got separated as soon as we hit the ground here," said Jak, clenching his fists on his knees. "One minute we're flying through the air and the next I'm knocked out by Krimzon Guards. I was just a  _kid_ ," he growled. "I still don't know why they picked me up. I woke up in a cell and no one would tell me why I was there. I just sat there hoping Daxter would show up… but I was alone. For days and days I was alone, and all I could hear was the other prisoners screaming from far away or crying in other cells." He grimaced at the memories. "I think I was losing it by the end of the first week. The only contact I had was from the KG shoving food into under the door, and they never said a word to me.

"The first time they brought me out of my cell, I thought I was finally going to get some answers. I thought they'd let me go because there had been a misunderstanding." He laughed bitterly. "The Baron was standing there with his hands behind his back, and he asked me if I knew who he was. When I shook my head, he just smiled and took off my handcuffs and looked at me for a while. I'll never forget what he said then… 'You will learn, boy.' Next thing I knew I was strapped to a table and… and…." Jak's eyes closed and the only sound in the room was his shaky intake of breath.

Keira sat perched on her end of the couch, at a loss for what to say. She'd never heard Jak speak for so long at one time. The story just spilled out of his mouth, and he hardly seemed to remember she was there – she realized that he had probably never told anyone.

"Every day they shot me with needles full of dark eco. I can't tell you how much it hurt. I thought I was going to die. Sometimes I'd be unconscious for days afterwards but as soon as I woke up, Errol would be there ready to drag me out of my cell for more."

Keira's eyes widened in horror. "Errol was there? I mean… he… he was…." She covered her mouth with both hands, remembering their last conversation about Errol. "I had no idea, I never would have – "

"It's in the past," Jak interrupted gruffly. "You couldn't have known."

"How are you… how are you still alive?"

"I'm not always sure. I know they'd already killed dozens of people trying to create a dark army. I just know that they were getting more and more pissed that I was still alive and not showing any changes. I should be dead, but I'm not. Sometimes I wish they had just killed me."

"Jak, why would you say something like that?" Keira whispered.

Jak looked at her levelly. "Because when I get really angry or afraid, I change. I become a monster and I can't control what I do. You haven't seen me that way but I hope you never have to. I get…  _hungry_  for dark eco, Keira," he said shakily. "My body absorbs it if I get near it. It hurts me every time but I still can't get enough. That  _thing_  that I become is always inside me, waiting to surface. Anything can set it off. That's what the Baron did to me." He sat silently for a while, pushing his long hair out of his eyes. "You know, the first time I heard his voice coming over the city loudspeakers, I almost lost it. I had to fight so hard to keep myself under control. Every time Torn sent me on a mission, I would imagine the Baron's face when he found out what had happened. I  _hoped_  he knew it was me. I hated him so much. Hating him was kind of my existence for a while. " Jak set the melted ice pack on the table and stared grimly at the floor.

"But I know you're better than that. You've worked so hard to help the city." Keira hesitantly put her hand on his shoulder, which caused Jak to flinch and draw a sharp breath. She immediately withdrew. "Why do you keep doing that? Is it that awful for me to touch you?"

"No. No. It's just that you're… the same."

Keira blinked in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm not the same person that I was," Jak answered slowly. "I'm not the guy you knew in Sandover village. I've killed people. I've done things that I don't even want to tell you about. And you… you're the same girl that you always were. It kills me that I can't be the guy you remember." He looked straight into her eyes for the first time in a very long time. "I feel wrong for wanting you the way I do. I feel like I need to forget you, but I can't."

Keira was speechless. Everything Jak told her explained his behavior, but it was the absolute last thing she ever could have expected. She felt a blush creeping up her cheeks, but she had to ask. "So you and Ashelin… is there anything...?"

Jak looked stunned. "Me and Ashelin? Are you kidding? Keira, I think Torn would come after me with a Peacemaker."

A smile slowly crept up lips. "Then listen to me," she said, firmly putting her hands on his shoulders. "You are a hero, no matter what you think of yourself. Look how many times you've saved the world! Look how many lives you've saved. You've got a lot of people who care about you, including…" she took a deep breath, " _especially_  me. You're not alone. I want to help you." Keira bit her lip and slid her hands from Jak's shoulders to the back of his neck. Ignoring his hitched breathing, she leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead.

Jak's shoulder's sagged and he finally relaxed his death grip on the couch cushions. Slowly, hesitantly, he brought his hands up to touch her shoulder blades. Keira scooted closer to him on the couch to rest her head on his shoulder. For a moment, Jak looked completely out of his element, but then he relaxed. He turned his head and furtively breathed in the scent of Keira's soft hair.

When the sun finally peeked over Haven's walls, Keira had fallen asleep. Jak stared out the window, absently running his fingers over her bare shoulder. The lines had been drawn. There was no going back from this. He realized that Keira would always be the same – the optimistic, strong, loyal girl he'd always known. The thought scared him, but he decided that it was what he loved about her.


	3. Chapter 3

Jak sat quietly, trying not to disturb the girl sleeping in his arms. His shoulder had long since gone numb from her head leaning on it, but he wouldn't have moved for the world. The silence felt strange to him, only broken only by birdsong and Keira's breathing. Ever since he'd escaped from prison, his world had been made up of explosions, gunshots, growling and shrieking of metal heads, or the roar of a stolen zoomer as he escaped from the KG yet again. His life had been in constant motion – when one mission was over, Torn or Krew or  _someone_  always had something else for him to do. He'd liked it that way. Nothing to consider, or worry about that he couldn't handle with his gun or jet board. After everything he'd been through, this stillness and tranquility felt peculiar, but he thought he might get used to it.

Keira shifted a bit in her sleep, and Jak looked down to make sure she wasn't waking up. Having her this close after trying to avoid her for so long was a blessing and a curse. Holding her close, feeling her hair tickle his neck as she breathed, and seeing her smooth, bare legs tucked beside her on the couch was almost too much. For all his bravado, Jak had never been this close to a woman before.

Sometimes he thought that since peace seemed to be returning to the city, maybe they could have a chance. Maybe he could have a normal life with her. But then the dark eco would burn in his veins, stronger than ever, and he hated himself for wanting her so badly. He'd try to think of other things and keep himself occupied – there was no way he'd ever put her in danger. Now, though, as he held her and the scent of her hair filled his senses, he couldn't get enough, and he hated himself for letting his control slip. His feelings for her had gotten the better of him, and now she was at risk.

Jak hadn't told her just how bad his dark eco condition really was – since he'd defeated Kor, it seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. Before, it had only raged out of control when he was frightened or very angry, but now, it would manifest suddenly with the smallest provocation. He wanted to believe that the Baron had been lying when he said that the dark eco would eventually kill him, but it was starting to feel truer every day.

Despite his grim thoughts, Jak's eyes felt heavier and heavier. He hadn't gotten much sound sleep for a while, with late night missions and nightmares contending with Daxter's parties and insistence that they hang out at the Naughty Ottsel as often as possible. Jak found himself breathing with Keira, and his eyes drooped twice before closing completely. He was fast asleep in seconds.

It felt like he was asleep for just seconds before his communicator squawked to life on the coffee table. Daxter's voice, shrill and slurred with hangover, rang out through the small apartment. "Jaaaaaaaaaaaaak! Where the hell are you? I been lookin for you for an  _hour_!" Jak's body tensed at the sudden noise, and Keira woke up when his arms tightened around her. She felt extremely groggy, but noticed how his face reddened when he let her go. He reached across the table and picked up the comm unit with an annoyed expression on his face.

"I  _was_  sleeping. What's going on?"

"Torn's here and he's being all  _mysterious_." In spite of her irritation, Keira could imagine Daxter wiggling his fingers and rolling his eyes as he spoke. "He says he needs to talk to you right now, but I don't see what the big –" Daxter's was cut off with Torn's gravelly voice crackling through the speaker.

"Jak. I don't care what you're doing; get your ass down to the Ottsel."

Immediately Jak's eyes narrowed and he brought the communicator closer to his face. "What's going on?"

"We've got a… situation on our hands."

"What  _kind_  of situation?"

"Look, just get down here and keep quiet. I don't want people getting panicky yet."

"Fine. I'll be there as soon as I can." Jak turned to Keira with an intense expression on his face. "Listen to me. Stay here and keep everything locked up. Don't go down into your garage and keep the blinds closed." He stood up and clipped his goggles back on, then shut the blinds with a snap. When he looked at Keira again, her eyes were wide with apprehension.

"What did Torn mean? What do you think happened?"

"I don't know. It might be serious. You need to stay here, ok?"

Keira stood up and shook her head. "Let me go with you. Maybe I can help."

"It could be dangerous. You need to stay here," he repeated firmly, slinging his gun out of its holster and checking the ammunition.

She put her hands on her hips. "I don't want to have to stay here alone, Jak! Why are you pushing me away?"

"Are you always this difficult?" he snapped without thinking.

Instead of shrinking back, Keira crossed her arms and stepped towards him. "You've asked me that before, as I recall. Haven't you figured out by now that it's not going to change?"

Jak found himself backing away from her. He could face ferocious metal heads and murderous Krimzon Guards, but this was definitely not the kind of confrontation he was used to. "Listen, Keira…" he began, but was unable to form what he wanted to say. After stammering for a moment, he gave up.  _Hell_ , he thought.

"Look, I just…I need you to… I need you to be safe," he said in a low voice. He hesitantly took her hand and squeezed it. "I promise I'll come back after I've talked to Torn."

Keira took a deep breath. "I'm going to hold you to that." She smiled at him and then impulsively threw her arms around his neck. "Please be careful, Jak."

He let her go and picked up his gun from where he had let it lean on the wall. "Just stay safe until I get back." Jak turned and sprinted down the stairs and through Keira's garage. After taking the steps two at a time, he found a conveniently parked zoomer at the bottom. He sped away on it, expertly navigating the tight streets, his heart hammering with disquiet. He hadn't liked Torn's tone of voice – something was definitely very wrong.

Keira peeked through the blinds to watch him go. She felt a strange uneasiness that had nothing to do with Jak leaving. She, and indeed no one else in Haven City, could have any idea of what was coming.


	4. Chapter 4

Jak slammed on the zoomer's brakes and slid to a halt in front of the Naughty Ottsel. He jumped down and strode through the door, and before his eyes had adjusted to the low light, Daxter's face popped up in front of him.

"Hey Jakky boy, where  _were_ you all night?" The ottsel bounced up and down on the ropes of the boxing ring in the middle of the bar, clearly still buzzed from his partying the previous night.

"Nowhere, Dax," he muttered. "Where's Torn?"

Daxter wasn't about to let him get away so easily. "Yeah  _right_ , nowhere! Come on Jak, spill the beans! Gettin' a little lovin' from the ladies?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Don't be afraid to ask for some tips from  _O-range Lightning_."

Jak was saved from having to answer when Torn's gruff voice reached his ears. "Come on Jak, we don't got all day."

Ignoring Daxter's protests, Jak turned and made his way towards the back of the bar. He frowned when he saw that Torn was sitting in the corner booth with Ashelin. If the Governor was involved, this could not be a routine problem. He slid in across from them and scowled at Torn. "Why are we meeting here instead of regular HQ?"

Before Torn could give him an answer, Daxter leaped up onto the table holding a menu. "What'll it be, gents? And what about you, hot stuff?" he asked, grinning cheekily at Ashelin. "You know you want some of  _this_ , if you know what I mean."

Jak couldn't decide whether Torn or Ashelin looked more ready to strangle Daxter. Quickly he pushed the ottsel back off the table and said "You know, Dax, I think we could all just use some peace and quiet right now. Maybe Tess needs some help restocking bottles or something."

"Fine, fine, I know when I'm not wanted here," grumbled Daxter. "I can take a hint, I know when my strategic planning abilities aren't good enough for you people!" His voice increased in volume and shrillness with every word. He threw up his arms dramatically. "Don't you worry about me, I'll just be in the back, hoarding my valuable skills to myself and – " Daxter's mouth snapped suddenly shut when he saw Torn aiming a pistol at him.

"Listen, rat, I don't want to see a single hair of your orange hide for the next hour, you got that?"

"Aahh… hehe… I'll just, uh, be in the back helping Tess, then!" With that, the ottsel took off quicker than his self-imposed nickname, Orange Lightning.

Torn flipped his pistol back into its holster and brought his hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. Jak had seen him looking worn-down before, but the look on Torn's face now was a whole new level of haggard. "We're not at HQ because we didn't want to attract attention. People see you coming and going in there all the time, and it could cause a panic at this point."

"Would you just tell me what's going on, already?" Jak asked impatiently.

Ashelin spoke up. "My men are bringing reports of massive groups of Metal Heads moving towards the city. They're definitely getting ready to attack, but we have no idea when or where the assault will come."

"I thought you said that destroying Kor would take down the Metal Heads forever!" Jak said to Torn.

"Yeah, well I thought so too. I don't have any answers to why they're still alive and why they picked now to attack. All I know is that we're going to have to brace ourselves. The city's eco shield has taken too many hits this past year to hold them back for long, and with Krew's tampering just before his death, it's only a matter of time before they break through."

"It gets worse," said Ashelin. She spread a map of the city on the table in front of them, pointing to a spot just outside of the old prison. "A few hours ago there was an attack on some civilians. It was carried out by robots stamped with the KG insignia – but we don't know who sent them or what they're after. My men took them out quickly, but people are angry. They don't believe that I had no knowledge or control over these robots." She smoothed the map again and rested her forehead on her knuckles. "If more robots show up during a metal head attack, I don't know what we're going to do."

Jak grimaced. "So that's why Daxter was talking about strategic planning. What are we going to do?" Torn and Ashelin exchanged glances. Jak's eyes narrowed. "So, what are you not telling me?"

Ashelin took a deep breath. "That meeting with the city council didn't exactly go well. People are scared, and they're looking for someone to blame." She didn't seem to want to go on.

"It might be better if you weren't on the front lines for a while, Jak. Just until things die down," Torn said. "It wouldn't help if the citizens rioted or attacked you, not on top of everything else."

"Why would they – " Jak stopped and sucked in his breath as the dark eco stirred in his veins. He felt the energy crackling around him, and for a moment his vision went black. When he opened his eyes again, Torn and Ashelin both had their hands on their guns.

" _That's_  why people might panic, Jak," Torn said grimly. "I know that your… condition is something that you're dealing with. I know what the Baron did to you. The people of Haven, though… they want to pin things on you."

"The city council is the same," added Ashelin. "They're calling for action, but the only thing they can think of is to punish you in some way. I know you haven't done anything," she said hastily, watching the way Jak's fists clench on the table. "I won't let them get away with this. But Torn and I thought you should know what was going on. We didn't want you to hear it in a more… unpleasant way."

Whatever Jak might have had to say about the situation was cut short by the sounds of screaming from outside the bar. At the same time, both Torn and Ashelin's comm units simultaneously squawked to life, filling the booth with the voices of terrified soldiers.

"More robots spotted in the port district! Sir, they're everywhere"

"Sir, we're taking heavy fire in the – "

"Governor, Metal Heads have breached the northern wall! They're overrunning the square! Awaiting orders!"

When Jak heard the latest soldier's report, he stood immediately and was halfway to the door before he even realized that he was moving. Torn stopped barking orders into his communicator and yelled, "Jak! Where the hell do you think you're going? I need you to – "

"Whatever it is, I can't do it," snarled Jak. "I have to get to the racing garages  _now_!" Ignoring Ashelin and Torn's objections, he ran out the door of the Naughty Ottsel only to be confronted with a scene of terrible carnage.

Hundreds of red robots marched and rolling through the streets. They looked like twisted versions of the human Krimzon Guards they were fighting against. Citizens ran screaming from the relentless onslaught of the machines, and Jak could already see several bodies floating in the waters of the port.

Jak whipped out his gun and set it to blaster mode, pausing to check his ammunition. He began to run steadily down the street, a grim expression set on his face. He smashed two robots to the ground with the butt of his gun and fired four quick rounds into a third before finding an unoccupied zoomer. He fired it to life and rocketed down the street, smashing into an entire phalanx of robots. Luckily, the zoomer stayed intact and he sped around the corner, where the fighting wasn't so thick. Ashelin's voice sounded over the city's speaker system, urging citizens not to panic and to get indoors immediately.

Jak heard none of it. All he heard was the roaring in his ears and thudding of his heart.  _Metal Heads have breached the northern wall. They're overrunning the square. That means they're near Keira._ He pushed down harder on the zoomer's throttle, willing it to go faster even though it was already at top speed.  _I promised her I'd come back. I promised her she'd be safe._

When he finally reached the square, his ride was on its last legs. He'd crashed into two more groups of robots, and the zoomer died at the foot of the stairs. Jak jumped out of the smoking wreckage and found a sight worse than he could have imagined. Metal Heads of every shape and size poured down the stairs from a large gap in the wall, roaring and chasing citizens into the stadium and down the streets. The larger beasts clawed against doors and windows, trying to get to the people hiding inside the buildings. Jak flipped his gun to the Vulcan Fury mod and began cutting a path through the hordes of metal heads, but the more he mowed down, the more seemed to pour through the gap in the wall.

Finally, he made it to the top of the stairs, only to find a large cluster of Metal Heads tearing at the bay doors of Keira's garage. One corner of the thick metal door was already peeled back like cardboard, and Jak knew it was only a matter of time before they would break through. He sprinted towards the metal heads and opened fire. His gun was down to its last few rounds of ammo when the last metal head was a twitching, bloody corpse. Jak slammed the code into the keypad between the doors and growled in frustration when they only opened halfway. The Metal Heads' assault had crumpled part of the doors inwards, so he had to climb over the pile of corpses and slide into the small opening.

The lights were off in the garage. Jak edged past the zoomers and benches, his heart still racing. "Keira!" he yelled. His voice sounded muffled in the small garage. "Keira!" He pulled the curtain aside and thundered up the stairs, pounding on the locked door. "Keira, you in there?"

The door flew open and Keira stood there trembling like a leaf, looking at him with wide eyes. Jak saw that she was clutching her largest, heaviest wrench in her hands. Without thinking, he put his gun in its holster and gathered her in his arms, holding her tightly and trying to stop her shaking. He closed his eyes and his heart slowly stopped its frantic thundering.  _She's safe._

"Jak, what are we going to do?" She pulled away slightly to look at him, resting her hands on his chest. He looked down at her, temporarily enthralled by the tears clinging to her eyelashes.  _She's safe_.

"What matters is you're okay," he said, releasing her and getting his gun back out. "Now we need to – " A terrible crashing and tearing sound from the garage cut him off, and he barely had time to turn around before a wave of Metal Heads came roaring up the stairs. One landed right on top of him, digging its claws into him and snapping its jaws near his face. He kicked it back against the wall and fired a few rounds into its skull, then whipped around to blast as many as he could back down the stairs. His gun was already out of ammunition before he could push many of them back. Jak braced himself for the next attack when he heard Keira screaming.

His world froze into painful slowness. He couldn't move fast enough – one glimpse of the single Metal Head cornering Keira against the wall was enough to set the dark eco flaring painfully through his body. He was aware of snarls coming from his mouth, aware of his claws ripping through the Metal Head's body and the dark energy blazing out of him, but then everything went black.

Some time later Jak came around with his hands gripping his forehead. He crouched on the floor of Keira's garage, and pain rippled through his body. The only sound was his harsh breathing. He slowly raised his head to see Metal Head corpses piled along the walls, their black blood spattered everywhere. He stood up unsteadily and then slumped against the wall - the dark eco was still burning out of him. His eyes flicked towards the stairs when he caught a movement there – and his heart sank.

Keira stood next to the ripped, blood spattered curtain that used to separate the main garage from her private workspace. If she'd been trembling before, she was positively quivering now. Her eyes were wide and brimming with tears.

Jak slowly raised his hands to show her that he was harmless. "Keira… are you all right?" he asked in a low voice. His heart contracted painfully when she flinched back. She gulped and it seemed to take her a moment to find her voice.

"I might ask you the same thing."

"I'm just… I'm sorry you had to see that." He gestured around helplessly. "This is what happens when I panic. I couldn't let that thing hurt you. I just lost control." The tears finally spilled out of Keira's eyes, and Jak turned away from her. He couldn't handle being the one to make her cry. He felt unclean – she had finally seen what was inside him and he didn't want to stick around long enough for her to reject him.

When Keira came up behind him and put her arms around him, it was all he could do to not drop dead in shock. He twisted gently around to face her. "Why do you even want to be close to me?"

Keira raised her eyes to look at him. "I told you before. To me, you're still you." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. "I will admit… that you scared me. But this has shown me that I need to be there for you more than ever. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

Jak stared down at her. He had no words to tell her how much it meant to him that she wasn't rejecting him. That she would even admit to being afraid but still be willing to stand by him. He threaded his fingers in her hair and slowly drew her face close to his. He could feel her breath on his lips and it made him feel dizzy in a way he'd never felt before. Their lips were a hair's breadth apart when Daxter came rocketing into the workshop, yelling "Jak! Jak!" They jumped apart immediately.

The ottsel seemed truly distraught, climbing quickly up to his friend's shoulder and checking to see if he was all right. "Come on, buddy, you scared me! Do  _not_  ever do that again, you hear me?" Torn climbed into the shop next. Both he and Daxter seemed oblivious to Jak's uneven breathing and Keira's reddened cheeks.

"Glad to see you're safe, Keira, Jak," he said curtly. "I've got a Hellcat Cruiser waiting outside. We need to get this area evacuated immediately." Torn ushered them quickly out of the shop and down to where the cruiser was parked. As they flew over the walls, Jak glanced at Keira, who was staring intently back at the ruins of her garage. He put his hand cautiously over hers.

"Once everything blows over, I'll help you get your shop fixed back up, Keira." She nodded mutely, drained from the terrible events of the day. Neither of them had any way of knowing just how far things were from blowing over.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starting to move into Jak III here. A lot of this is based on my own assumptions, especially the locations of where things are taking place… I've played the game several times but the intro scene gets a little confusing!

Keira sat on her new bed in the Palace, knees drawn up to her chin. She tried to take in her surroundings, but her mind felt fuzzy and overwhelmed. Things were happening too fast. One minute things had been relatively normal – she'd had a garage of her own, an apartment of her own. A place to work in calmness and privacy, and a place to invite friends over if she chose. Keira had never particularly like living in Haven City, but at least she'd known how things worked. At least she'd had a familiar routine, and had been working on things she loved.

But now she looked out the large window across the room and could see smoke rising from many parts of the city. She shivered to think of the Metal Heads and robots ravaging the streets. Her garage and apartment were destroyed. When they'd arrived at the Palace, Torn had deposited her in this lavish room, saying that she would be staying here for a while. Apparently Samos had demanded that his daughter be housed in safety, with rooms near his, which made Keira roll her eyes with embarrassment.

Now alone, she stood and crossed to the window to lean her forehead against the glass. She dug her toes into the soft carpet and watched a phalanx of Hellcat Cruisers hovering slowly around the perimeter of the Palace.  _Where is the good in this?_  she thought sadly. Her fingers itched to take hold of a screwdriver, a wrench, anything to take her mind off of the madness. All there was in this room was the soft bed, plush carpet, and a fancy but empty closet. She'd go insane within a day.

"Torn told me to stay put… he said that my father was busy," Keira mused out loud. She drummed her fingers against the window and then snapped her fingers. "He didn't say how  _long_  I had to stay put." She stood up with a mischievous smile and a new sense of purpose, walking quickly towards the door of the room. She cautiously pushed the button that slid the door open and poked her head out. No one to the left… no one to the right… and no security cameras that she could see. If she ran into any Krimzon Guards, she'd be confident and demand that she be taken to her father or Torn. Easy. She could be helpful to them. She could do  _something_. Hell, she'd even repair the coffee maker if it meant she could be involved and not sitting useless in that fancy room.

Finding people in the Palace, however, was a harder task than it seemed. Keira wandered through corridor after corridor until she felt like she was walking through a maze. There were no people around, not even any guards, which made her feel uneasy. The walls were so thick that she couldn't hear any of the fighting outside. All the silence eventually made her thoughts wander – straight to Jak, of course. Her heartbeat quickened when she thought of their latest almost-kiss. Maybe they were finally getting somewhere. Keira shook her head suddenly. How many times had they "almost kissed" now? Three? Nothing ever changed. Maybe it was stupid to think that it would this time.

Her morose thoughts were interrupted when she heard voices coming from a guest room up a flight of stairs from where she was standing. As she got closer, she started to recognize one of them – it was none other than Daxter, and he didn't sound too happy. As Keira walked closer, she started to realize that the other voice was Jak's. Suddenly, stupidly, her palms began to sweat and her heart started pounding. Annoyed with herself, Keira strode boldly up the rest of the stairs and stopped in the doorway, ready to start a breezy, casual conversation. The words died in her throat when she saw just why Daxter sounded so upset.

Jak sat on the bed with his back to her, his shoulders hunched with pain. He had stripped his shirt and gun holster, and he held a blood-soaked medical pad to his side with one hand. Daxter stood on the bed next to him, looking extremely distressed. He held a huge unraveling roll of gauze in his paws, and despite his best efforts, couldn't get it properly wound around Jak.

"Let's see… if I roll it this way… no, no… um…." The ottsel's normal joking tone was gone, and his ears and tail drooped. He had obviously been trying to bandage Jak up for a while, given the mess of gauze draped all over the bed. Jak, on the other hand, was obviously in pain and losing patience. Every time Daxter would try to get the bandage wrapped, he'd pull too tight or poke his fingers too close to the wound. "Aaagh! Jak, I can't do this, man! I'm screwing it all up!" He flung the bandages up in the air, finally unrolling them completely. "I gotta go find someone who actually knows what they're doing." He turned around to face the door, whacking Jak's side with his tail, and finally noticed Keira standing there.

Daxter jumped off the bed and streaked over to the doorway. "Keira! You gotta help! Jak's gonna bleed to death!"

"I am not, Dax!" Jak growled irritably. Keira noticed that he wouldn't turn around.

Daxter ignored him and snatched Keira's hand, doing his best to drag her over the bed. He scurried back up and thrust the wads of gauze into her arms. "Fix him, will ya?" he pleaded.

"I'll do my best, I guess," Keira answered hesitantly. She glanced at Jak, who continued to stare resolutely at the wall. "Daxter, can you find me some antiseptic? There should be a medical wing somewhere in this place."

"Jak didn't want to go to the medical wing," answered Daxter. "Mr. High and Mighty Grouchypants over there – "

"Just go find me some, ok?" interrupted Keira, glaring at him.

Jak finally looked at her when Daxter had left the room. He looked exhausted, but there was an amused look on his face. "You know there's some antiseptic on the table, right?"

"Of course," she answered briskly, rolling up some of the gauze. "I could tell you were ready to kill Daxter. He'll run around for a while and it'll give me a chance to get you patched up." Keira sat down next to him on the bed. "Here, lift up that pad and let me get you a fresh one. I'll try to do this fast."

Keira tried not to wince when she saw the ragged slash in Jak's side where the Metal Head's claws had dug in. It wasn't deep, but the skin around it flared an angry red. It looked clean enough, so she pressed a fresh medical pad soaked in antiseptic over it. Jak clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, but didn't make a sound.

"Hold it there, 'kay?" Keira started to wrap the bandage around him, but the angle was too awkward. "Hang on," she said, shuffling sideways on her knees until she sat behind him on the bed. She leaned forward to bring the gauze around his body, and in doing so pressed her cheek against his back. Jak held very still, not even breathing. For one second she was tempted to stay there, and leave her arms wrapped around him.

The moment passed, and Keira forced herself to sit up and stick some medical tape on the gauze to hold it in place. "There," she said lightly. "Good as new, as long as you don't move around too much for a while."

"Thanks, Keira," he answered, standing up and rolling his shoulder. Keira tried not to stare at the way his back muscles moved, or at the series of scars across one shoulder blade, or… damn, she  _was_ staring. She covered her cheeks to hide the blush traveling across them, but that was too obvious. She jumped off the bed, spilling all of the medical supplies onto the ground. Jak finally turned around, and before he started picking things up, she noticed that  _his_  cheeks were red.

 _The hell with this_ , thought Keira.  _I'm tired of all this dancing around and nothing ever happening between us!_

"Jak," she began. "I want to talk about – "

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" shouted Samos from the doorway.

"Daddy? Where did you come from?" asked Keira in bewilderment. She noticed Jak edging away from her, his cheeks getting even redder.

"I expected better from you, Keira! And you, Jak, seducing my daughter with your shirt off! It's perfectly indecent!" The green sage tromped across the room and hauled Keira up by the arm.

"Daddy, seriously, it's not – "

"I don't want to hear it, Keira. You're coming with me."

"Samos, it wasn't like that," Jak protested after pulling his shirt on. Samos thumped him in the chest with his cane, pushing him back against the wall.

"Not another word, young man. Keira, you are coming to the command center where I can keep an eye on you."

Samos dragged his daughter out of the room so quickly that she didn't have time to say anything to Jak.  _At least I'm getting what I wanted_ , Keira thought.  _At least I get to be useful_. She couldn't help looking back down the hallway, but Jak wasn't following them.


	6. Chapter 6

For the next several days, Keira learned more than she ever wanted to know about combating metal heads and the mysterious KG robots. Of course, she never actually went out on the battlefield. Her father would have had an aneurysm had anyone even suggested it. Besides, Keira wasn't a warrior like Ashelin or even Tess, who both walked around with pistols and knives strapped to both legs.

That wasn't to say that Keira wasn't helpful. She reprogrammed the viewing screen to better show the battlegrounds. She pointed out things that her father missed seeing, and learned to read the eco grids and anything else she could get her hands on. Eventually the people in the command center stopped looking at her sideways and started accepting and even welcoming her help. Ashelin and Torn were often there too, but they were too busy to acknowledged Keira's presence. Keira tried not to look at Ashelin out of the corner of her eye too often. Jak  _said_  there was nothing between them, but Keira didn't like the looks Ashelin gave him once in a while. Or the way she talked to him, for that matter.

Keira scowled and shook her head, trying to focus on what her father was saying. Ashelin had been saying something about the city council causing trouble, and Samos was saying something about Jak maybe needing to stay secluded in the palace for a while. Keira got up from her chair, rubbing her sweaty palms on her pants.

"I'll go find him and let him know," she said in as casual a tone as she could muster.

She was out of the command center room before anyone could say anything. With everything that had been happening lately, she hardly got to see him at all. Jak was always out on a mission, or deeply engaged in serious, low-toned conversations with Torn and Ashelin. Keira would try to catch his eye whenever she could, but Jak rarely responded. She would have been angry at him if he hadn't looked so tired and worn.

Jak wasn't in his room, which was to be expected. He was almost never there these days. Keira knew that she should probably just call his communicator to find out where he was, but something stubborn in her refused. She wanted to talk to him in person for once.

After fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, though, Keira resignedly drew her communicator out of her pocket. Her finger lingered on the ON switch for a second, but then she put it back in her pocket when she heard a strange sound, almost like heavy breathing, coming from around the corner up ahead. Keira started to feel sick to her stomach. She had heard this sound before – when Jak had changed in her garage and slaughtered the Metal Heads. She started to walk a little faster, her heart thudding painfully.

"Hello?" she called nervously. When Keira turned the corner, she found Jak hunched against the wall with his back to her. He gripped fistfuls of his hair, and Keira could see his shoulders shaking as he sucked in air.

"Jak, what's wrong?"

"Stay away from me," he snarled. His voice didn't sound normal. It was deeper and had a ragged edge to it that scared her.

"Is it the dark eco?" she asked quietly, keeping herself very still.

Jak began to laugh, and it was not a pleasant sound. Slowly he stood up, bracing himself against the wall. When he turned around, Keira saw that his eyes were shifting from black to blue, back and forth. "When is it  _not_  the dark eco? It's taking me over and everyone knows it."

"Let us help you, then!" she said, forgetting her fear and taking his hands. "You act like you're all alone and you're not!"

Jak wrenched his hands away from her. "That's easy for you to say. You're not the one everyone looks sideways at. No one trusts me and I don't blame them."

"What are you talking about?" An apprehensive feeling started roiling in Keira's stomach. She knew that it wasn't like him to just spout out paranoid accusations.

"It doesn't matter," he said bitterly. "You don't have to force yourself to be over here talking to me."

"I'm not," she answered. "I came looking for you." She'd never felt so confused. One day he was holding her as she slept and letting her bandage his wounds, but now this?

"Just get away from me." Jak's voice had never sounded so quiet and dangerous. "I don't need you or anyone else."

Keira stiffened, and her hands slowly balled into fists. "Don't kid yourself," she said coldly, trying not to let tears spill out of her eyes. "My mistake, I guess. Looks like you've got everything under control over here." She turned around and walked back the way she came until she got back to her room. Keira didn't cry until she was in her bed with the covers over her head, and she didn't get up for a long time after that.

It was late at night when hunger finally drove out of bed. She found some chips sitting on a table in the guards' break room and took the bag with her, listlessly munching as she walked. Her eyes were red and itchy from crying, and she didn't much feel like seeing anyone. The plan was to hole up in her room with the chips and see if things looked brighter in the morning, but that wasn't going to happen that night. Halfway back to her room, Keira heard shouting coming from the command room, and recognized her father's voice. She turned around and peeked in the doorway, wondering what could have Samos so angry.

The Green Sage had drawn himself up to his full height, and was brandishing his walking stick in the face of a tall, bald, rather rat-faced man who Keira felt like she'd seen before. "You have doomed us, Count Veger, do you hear me?" Samos was shouting.

"Please get your green guard dog under control," drawled Count Veger to Ashelin, who stood with her arms crossed a few feet away. The look on her face was enough to kill, but it didn't seem to bother him in the least.

"You just wait, Veger," she snapped. "Things are really going to go to hell now."

"My dear Governor," he answered with a sneer, "if you haven't noticed, we  _are_  in hell. Metal heads and rogue robots are overrunning the streets, the hospitals are jammed with wounded, and the Palace has been blown up."

Keira took a few steps into the room, listening with interest. This was the first she'd heard about the Palace.

"I don't know what you think that Jak fellow could be doing to make things any better," Veger was saying, examining the tip of his jeweled cane. "The people demanded decisive action, and since our Lady Governor was not making a move, the Council had to act."

"And you just exiled our last hope from the city!" Samos shouted, waving his walking stick over his head, seemingly on the verge of whacking Veger with it.

"I exiled a dangerous eco freak," hissed Veger. "Shout at me all you like, but he's not coming back. He'll rot in the desert. Meanwhile," he said, delicately dusting off his sleeves, "I have other business to attend to, and I expect the lot of you do as well." He stalked out of the room, past Keira, who had dropped her bag of chips and was staring in horror at her father.

"Daddy, what was he talking about?" Keira asked faintly.

Samos and Ashelin both turned around at the same time. They hadn't noticed Keira standing there.

Samos looked sadly at his daughter. "Keira, I'm afraid Jak has been exiled to the Wasteland. They took him away this afternoon."

Keira felt a jolt, like she'd been walking up stairs and missed one. "This afternoon…" she said softly, covering her mouth with her hand. That afternoon was the last time she'd talked to Jak... he must have been taken away right after they'd fought.

She could hear her father speaking, but it seemed to come from very far away. "We have to go get him," she interrupted.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," answered Samos. "It's too dangerous to leave this building right now, let alone leave the city. Besides, he wasn't just thrown out, he was legally exiled. If we help him we could be exiled ourselves."

Keira stared at her father. "So that's it. You're ok with just leaving him out there to die?"

"That's not just it," put in Ashelin. "I couldn't say so with Veger here, but I slipped Jak a tracking device when he was dropped off. With any luck, someone will be able to pick him up."

"That's great," Keira said sarcastically. "But it probably would have been more helpful if you had stopped them from throwing him out in the first place!"

"Watch it, sweetheart," answered Ashelin in a deadly voice. "I fought harder than anyone to keep him here, but even I can't overrule the vote of the entire council." She stalked out of the room. "Go back to your machines and let me do my job."

Keira shrugged off her father's attempts at comfort and plodded numbly back to her room. She curled up on the bed, feeling as though the room was turning slowly.

 _Those things I said to him…_ she thought. _What if that was the last thing I ever get to say to him? What if I never get to make things right with him?_


	7. Chapter 7

Keira wiped the film of sweat off of her forehead and sighed with satisfaction. It had taken several days, but she'd finally figured out a way to fortify the command center's entry doors without using any extra steel.

"It's all a matter of wiring," she said proudly, standing up and wiping her hands on a rag. "If the door suffers any strong impact, it'll send out an electronic burst!" After shutting her toolbox, Keira looked around at the silent entryway. "Not that anyone cares," she muttered. Everyone, even her father, was too busy to notice her anymore.

She rode the elevator up, balancing her toolbox on her hip. Lately not even working on machinery helped to put her at peace. Not being allowed to leave the command center was really taking a toll on her. Keira had updated almost every system and gadget in the building, but she was still going stir crazy. She'd unplugged her TV set, sick of seeing all the carnage in the city - there seemed to be no end to the Metal Head and KG robot attacks. And these thoughts went took her in a direction she didn't want to go – towards Jak.

Keira tried to ignore the painful little jolt her heart made when she thought of him. He'd been gone for weeks, and although Ashelin had assured everyone he'd been rescued by "certain allies," they'd heard absolutely nothing from him. His communicator had been taken from him before his banishment, and if he had a new one, Keira didn't know the frequency. And he'd seemed so angry before he left… if he really was okay, she was starting to doubt that he would ever come back to Haven, even if he somehow got the chance.

When she finally got back to her room, Keira glumly let her toolbox clatter to the floor and sank onto her bed. She curled up with her hands under her pillow and stared at the opposite wall. No matter how hard she tried not to think of him, Jak always managed to creep back into her thoughts. Tonight was worse than usual – Keira found herself replaying every moment and conversation they'd had, even from when they were children. Walks on the beach, comparing the shells and pebbles they'd found… proudly showing him the new parts of the zoomers she invented… almost kissing him after he'd saved the world….

Keira rolled to one side and put her pillow over her face, trying not to think of more recent things that had happened between the two of them, but the images kept playing in her head. She thought of the way Jak had held her as she slept – after telling her things he'd probably never told anyone before. Keira felt her face heat up as she remembered the warmth of his arms around her, and the feeling of his chest breathing in and out under her cheek. Then they way he had come to rescue her from the Metal Heads - when she thought she was all alone, he was there to save her. Even burying her face in the cool side of her pillow couldn't get rid of the redness spreading across her cheeks and down her neck, because her mind had flitted to his lips hovering over hers in the garage….

Keira quickly raised herself into a sitting position when she heard her door sliding open with a soft mechanical hiss. She tried desperately to keep a casual expression on her face when she heard the distinctive sound of her father's wooden shoes clunking across the floor.

"What is it, Daddy?"

Samos shuffled uncomfortably, peaking Keira's curiosity. Her father was usually very direct. "Keira," he said slowly. "I'm doing this against my better judgment, but I'd like you to come with me."

"Where?" she asked, unable to understand where this was going.

"I mean, come with me into the city, dangerous as it is…" he trailed off awkwardly.

Keira got off the bed and went to stand by her father. "What for? And why are you acting so strange?"

Samos finally looked her in the eye. "I've found out that Jak is back in the city. I've sensed his energy. We need to go and meet him. He needs updated on the situation here, and I feel that it would be best if we went in person. I need to talk to him face to face to convey things properly. And… I know how hard it was for you when he left. I want to give you a chance to talk to him too."

Keira hardly heard what her father said after "Jak is back in the city." For her, everything seemed to go very quiet, and all she could hear was her own heartbeat.

She heard herself saying, "Yes, of course I'll go with you." But she didn't know where it came from. Her heartbeat was getting louder, and it was saying  _he's here, he's here, he's here._  Suddenly she felt afraid to see him, and almost stopped walking with her father. But the elevator doors had closed and they were on their way down to the street.

 _Why should I feel afraid?_  Keira thought to herself.  _This is what I've wanted since he was exiled. I can tell him I'm sorry for what I said before._

They were not attacked as they walked through the streets of Haven. Things even seemed quiet that night. If not for the lack of people walking around, things could almost be normal. They came to one of the shield walls that had been activated around the city, where Samos said that they could wait. Keira didn't bother to ask how her father knew where Jak would be. She was too busy shifting from foot to foot, smoothing her hair, tugging her clothes into place… anything to stop herself from pacing or running away.

They only had to wait for a few minutes before Keira heard Daxter's voice from around a corner. She held her breath and tried to dry her sweaty hands on her pants.

And then he was there. Everything suddenly felt slow – Keira felt like she had forever to look at him. He looked different – he'd cut his long hair off, and his clothes had changed, and he had patches of sunburn and tan on his arms and face– but he was the same. She would always know him.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the moment ended, and Samos was calling out for Jak and waving. Keira felt her arm waving too, but she was too focused on Jak running towards them to really notice what she was doing.

"Samos! Keira!" Jak said her name without any anger or resentment. He stopped in front of the energy field, and Keira couldn't help noticing that more than his looks had changed. He seemed… lighter. His eyes weren't as haunted, and he held his shoulders straighter. It reminded her of the old Jak, the one she knew in Sandover.

She realized that her father had been talking to Jak for a while, and that she'd been standing there with her hands clasped like some sappy little girl. She quickly put her hands down, and found herself hanging back when he father walked forward to talk to Jak.

 _What do I say_? she thought frantically.  _He's so focused on talking to my father. They've both forgotten that I'm here._ Keira heard a noise behind her, and used that as an excuse to casually walk forward and stand next to her father.

"…we're sorry for what happened," Samos was saying. "We should have stopped Veger."

 _This is your chance!_ Keira screamed in her mind.  _You have to apologize!_ But all she could do was stare at Jak as he clenched his fists and turned away.

"I'll stop him myself," he said. And then he was gone.

Keira was barely aware of the journey back to HQ. Samos stayed quiet for once, sensing that his daughter needed to be left alone. When they finally entered the building, Keira headed straight for the stairs without a word. She went into her room, closed the door, and slid down the wall into a sitting position, resting her head on her knees.

 _Why did I even go with him? I was like a prop. I didn't say a single damn thing_. She angrily rubbed away tears that were forming in her eyes.  _He hardly looked at me._

The worst part had been her little hand-clasping damsel in distress moment. "Where did that even come from?" Keira asked herself out loud.

"That's it," she said, standing up decisively. "I am through pining over him when he can't even give me a look in the eye. He's making me act like an idiot and I'm getting nothing out of it." She smacked her hand against her fist. "No more thinking about him, no more flirting with him, and no more wishing to have what I can't." She opened her toolkit and started rummaging through it forcefully. "I won't take any more of this hot and cold business from him," she muttered to herself. "Whenever I see him again, he will be nothing more than a friend. A teammate." With that decision, Keira threw herself into the repair of a broken holo-projector, ignoring the slow sad beating of her heart.


	8. Interlude with Jak and Daxter

As soon as the duo rounded the corner, Daxter cuffed Jak on the back of the head. "Sheez, what was that all about?"

"What was  _what_?" asked Jak with a glare, rubbing his neck in annoyance.

"Ohooo no, don't pretend like you were totally ignoring Keira there," said Daxter smugly. "Whatsamatter, buddy, little lover's spat goin' on there? Or," he said slyly, switching to Jak's other shoulder, "have you finally decided to hook up with Ashelin? I mean, she did make a special trip out to the Wasteland just to see you…"

"Knock it off, Dax," Jak answered, rolling his eyes and ignoring Daxter's snort. He pulled out his gun and held it loosely, scanning the alleys on either side of them for the telltale glows of Metal Head gems.

 _This isn't the time_ , he told himself.  _I've got a job to do. Again._ But he couldn't help thinking about what Daxter said. When he'd been banished, Jak had done his best to put Keira behind him, just like everything and everyone else in Haven. For a while, it had been easy. Trying to stay alive and prove himself in Spargus had been in the forefront of his mind. Sure, Keira slipped into his thoughts a lot, but he could push those things aside and focus on what he had to do.

That didn't change the fact that seeing her was like a punch in the gut.

Seeing her on the other side of the shield wall brought everything he'd left behind into sharp, painful focus. Jak mentally cringed as he remembered their last conversation. Now that he'd lost the chance, he wished he could tell her about the light eco, how it was tempering the darkness inside him, how it was no longer killing and consuming him. In fact, there were a lot of things he wanted to tell her – "I'm sorry," being foremost.

But instead he'd done what he always did – his mission, what was expected of him. He'd gotten his information from Samos and moved on without a word to Keira. The pain of it tore at him, but he kept walking and ignoring Daxter's continual mutterings.

"Know what, Dax?" he interrupted gruffly. "If Keira wanted to talk to me she could have. Let's just do what we have to do here."

Jak walked slowly into the darkness of the sewers, forcing down his desire to run back to her. He reminded himself for the thousandth time that he had a job to do, and that dwelling on what had happened in the past wouldn't do him any good. It was the only thing keeping him going.


	9. Chapter 9

For days Keira avoided speaking to her father. She didn't want him to ask about why she and Jak hadn't spoken. Luckily, it was easy to stay out of his way. Samos was occupied at all hours of the day and night, trying to formulate strategies for the war. From what Keira heard when she was in the command center, things were getting worse than ever. The city was absolutely clogged with Metal Heads and robots, and the defenders' forces had been cut in half. There were times when they could faintly hear the KG bots slamming into the doors of the command center and being repelled by the electrical force field.

When things like this happened, Keira set her mouth in a grim line and did what repairs she could to the systems, burying her fear as deep as she could. She ran errands for her father and for others, helping the same way she had for weeks and weeks. Everything began to feel that it would be the same forever: trapped in one building, surrounded by murderous creatures and never seeing peace again.

Keira's first instinct was to avoid the main command room, but she tried her best not to. Samos and Ashelin often spoke to Jak over the holo-communicator, and there was absolutely no reason why she should leave the room when they did so. She was able to calmly continue her work without looking up when his voice crackled over the system. And if she worried about Jak, Keira told herself that it was simple concern for an old friend getting himself into dangerous situations. Nothing more.

One day the monotony was broken by the shrill sound of Daxter's voice. At first Keira ignored it, thinking that it was just another transmission, but then she realized that the sound had no crackling, and the holo-communicator wasn't even activated. Slowly Keira raised her head to see Jak and Daxter walking in the room. For a second she was tempted to ignore them and let everyone else speak to them as usual, but then she decided not to be so immature.  _He can still be my friend,_  she reasoned.

"Daxter! Jak! You did it" she exclaimed with a smile, clapping her hands together. Jak looked at her for a moment and almost looked like he would say something, but Samos interrupted, and Jak turned his eyes away.

Keira took a deep, slow breath through her nose.  _That was ok_ , she thought.  _I was congratulating both of them for doing something great. Nothing pathetic there_. She narrowed her eyes and placed both hands on the holo-projector.

"Also, the large number of eco crystals being moved about can mean only one thing," she interjected smoothly, just after Samos finished speaking. "Someone is trying to awaken vast precursor technology." For one second she looked Jak straight in the eye.

Her heart sank a bit when Jak seemed to direct his response at Ashelin more than anyone else, but she quickly squashed that thought.  _That doesn't matter one bit_ , she told herself forcefully.  _He can talk to whoever he wants._

Just as quickly as they came, Jak and Daxter left the building to defend against another assault. Keira felt her father's eyes on her, but she ignored him and settled down to tinker with one of the machinery panels on the opposite side of the room. When she came out of her mini trance, her father called her over to the holo panel again to show her how Jak had almost singlehandedly repelled the attack. KG robots were scattering across the screen, retreating in every direction.

Keira shook her head. "He really is something," she said quietly. Moments later the main doors opened and Jak was back, walking toward the control table like he'd never left.

"Nice moves, my boy!" exclaimed Samos. "You're the best man we've got to lead an expedition to the catacombs."

Keira was about to say something too when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Ashelin smiling at Jak. Not just a smile, either – after a moment she gave him a subtle wink. Jak didn't exactly smile back, but he looked rather more pleased than Keira would have hoped. She clamped her hands together, trying to not to watch Ashelin quirk her eyebrows at Jak. Thankfully, she was spared from having to pretend indifference by the sudden entrance of Count Veger.

"Please, please, let us not be too hasty," he intoned smoothly. "Are you sure you want this dark eco freak contaminating the halls of our glorious precursors?" The count shot a contemptuous glance at Jak. "I should lead the expedition myself."

Ashelin didn't seem phased. "We're tired of your scheming, Veger."

He put his arm around her and leaned in close. "But I have the answer you're looking for. My Precursor monks have given me the knowledge of how to turn on the planetary defense grid. I will… if you beg me to do so."

No one said anything. Keira looked around the room in amazement. Surely they weren't considering his offer? She hesitated for only a second, then looked right at Veger. "Jak's always gotten us through thick and thin. I'm with  _him_."

As the others voiced their agreement and Ashelin put Veger in his place, Keira watched Jak.  _Surely I deserve some acknowledgement for sticking up for him like that_ , she thought sourly. But he never looked at her, even after Veger left in a rage. In fact, she realized, he was determinedly looking anywhere but at her. After a moment or two, Keira gave up and sat on the edge of the holo-table and tried to tune back into what Ashelin was saying. In the end, it was decided that Jak had to climb through the sewers and turn on an old power box for some eco grids.

And just like that, he was gone again, on another dangerous mission with no certainty that he would ever come back. She sat down next to the holo-table and dragged her toolbox over, opening it to clean each tool for what felt like the thousandth time that week.  _I wish he wouldn't ignore me like that_. The thought slid into her mind without warning.  _Even if he has changed his mind about me, he still could act a little nicer_.


	10. Chapter 10

_Another party_ , mused Keira, sipping a drink and leaning back against the rocky wall.  _Daxter can even manage to throw something together all the way out here_. She smiled and watched him careening around the room, accompanied by Tess, who was still trying to get used to her ottsel body.

"See, baby, it's all in the tail! You gotta use it for balance! You gotta – " was all that Daxter managed to get out before he went flying head over heels into one of the pools that lined the throne room.

Keira laughed and helped Tess fish Daxter out of the pool. He promptly grabbed Keira's half finished drink, gulped it down, and began singing in a garbled voice. She rolled her eyes and walked away, deciding to let Tess handle him. Keira slipped through the crowd over to the makeshift bar and grabbed a tall glass of something strong. She pushed past the people dancing and stopped next to a pillar where things were a little quieter. She sat down and dangled her feet over one of the room's many pools.

It was so hard to believe that everything was finally over. A month ago Keira thought she'd never see the outside of Freedom HQ again, much less the fabled city of Spargus. And yet here she was, celebrating with everyone else. It was strange to think that Jak had saved the world for a third time and she still hardly knew how he'd done it. The talking ottsels in their spacecraft had been confusing enough, but the muddled rumors of time travel really made her head hurt.

As usual, it was Daxter's high-pitched voice that cut into her thoughts. She watched him standing on top of the bar telling anyone who would listen about how he'd taken on the dark ship by himself and that Jak had shown up at the last minute to take all the credit.

"Some things never change," murmured Keira, shaking her head and smiling.

"They really don't," said someone behind her. Keira turned her head and there was Jak, leaning against a pillar. He walked over and sat down next to her with an easy smile that she hadn't seen since Sandover village.

"So you don't want to correct him then?" she asked with a smile of her own, setting her mostly finished drink aside and leaning back on her hands. It was impossible to feel unhappy or uncomfortable on such a night. And having Jak next to her didn't hurt.

"Nah. Let him have his moment, I guess." They watched Daxter in a comfortable silence, for once their awkwardness gone. There was still a lot between them, but Keira didn't feel like she had to bring it up. She felt more peaceful and free than she had in a long time. The Metal Heads were defeated and the Baron had been deposed, and the city was finally safe. Probably had something to do with the drinks she'd had, too.

The drinks might have also had something to do with what she said next. "I'm surprised that you're still here."

"What does that mean?"

"You could have left with those ottsels on that ship. You could be anywhere else but here." Keira registered from somewhere far away that she should probably stop talking, but she seemed to have lost control of her mouth. "That's always what you want, isn't it? No matter what you say about it, you always end up far away from me."

Jak just looked at her with a quiet expression on his face that she'd never seen him wear before. "I wish that wasn't what you thought about me."

"Jak, it was the worst thing when you got in that spaceship," she finally said, feeling tears well up in her eyes that she hadn't even known were brewing. "I thought I'd never see you again."  _Damn my voice wobbling like that._ Angrily she swiped at her eyes and slugged back the rest of her drink.

Jak caught her wrist and firmly took the cup away from her. "Why do you think I came back?" He set the cup on the ground and took her hand in both of his. "It's not because I'd miss Haven City."

"Then  _tell_  me why you came back!" Keira snapped, trying to ignore the feeling of his hands over hers. "Tell me the real reason, if there is one!"

"What I told you… you know, before. None of that has changed for me." Jak spoke so quietly that she could hardly hear him over the music of the party, and he seemed unable to look at her, but she saw how his face reddened all the way to the tips of his ears.

Hope leapt up in Keira's chest but she squished it down firmly. "You could have fooled me, Jak," she said, trying to pull her hand away from him. "The way you've acted since then kind of says otherwise."

"What do you want me to say? Sorry I was being eaten alive by dark eco? Sorry I was getting kicked out of the city and trying to save the world again?" He shook his head in frustration. "I'm trying to make things right here, ok?" His eyes finally met hers, and he swallowed painfully before saying, " _You're_  the reason I came back."

Keira felt happiness bubbling up inside of her, but before she could say any of the many things that she wanted to, the sound of breaking glass rippled through the room. Jak was on his feet almost too quickly for her to see him move, and he had immediately put his body between her and whatever had caused the noise. Keira stood up and put her hand on Jak's shoulder, peering around him to see what had caused it.

Of course it was Daxter again. He'd stacked an enormous pile of glasses into a pyramid and crashed them all to the floor with one of his wide gestures. Thankfully the partygoers were laughing rather than being angry with him. Keira rushed over to the ottsel, her conversation with Jak momentarily forgotten in her fear that someone would get cut on the glass. She grabbed some napkins off the bar and started picking up glass shards with them. Jak walked over and picked Daxter up off the floor and set him on the bar.

"You've definitely had enough tonight, Dax," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Are you kidding, buddy?" slurred Daxter, rocking slowly from side to side to the music. "The party's just getting started! And you know what?" he said, squinting his eyes to focus on Jak. "I never told the end of the story! I gotta tell the end… I gotta tell the end, people!" he yelled to the room at large. Most of the revelers ignored him, having gotten used to Daxter's drunken rambunctiousness, but some of them turned towards him with knowing glances at one another, as if to say,  _what's he going to make up now_? Even Jak rolled his eyes good naturedly at Keira, and she shrugged her shoulders with a smile.

"So there we were," Daxter began, gesturing to the room at large. "We had just taken down the dark colossus, the dust was settling, and we came walking out in slow motion looking completely  _badass_ …." He paused and squinted at Jak. "Needless to say I looked MORE badass than this guy," he said in a loud stage whisper, hooking his thumb in Jak's direction. Jak just rolled his eyes again and turned around to order a drink. The noise of the party escalated suddenly, and he had to walk to the other side of the bar and shout into the bartender's ear to make himself heard.

Maybe if he'd been closer and paying more attention, he could have stopped Daxter from saying what he said next.

"So then Miss Captain Hot Stuff over there," he drawled, gesturing grandly across the room at Ashelin, "comes sashaying up to Jak and wouldn't you know it, she plants a big wet one on him! And let me tell you, people, it was  _hot_. Just wish she could've shared the love a bit more, ya know?"

Very few people were paying attention to Daxter at that point, but his little speech had quite the effect on those who did hear him. Jak choked on his drink, spitting half of it onto the counter. Ashelin rolled her eyes but couldn't quite look at anyone in the face. Torn clenched his fists, glared at Daxter, and stalked out of the room, shoving people out of his way. After a moment, Ashelin followed him.

Keira felt all of the blood draining out of her face. Daxter babbled on, the music played, the party continued, but her ears felt like they were stuffed full of cotton – everything was on mute. Through the haze of one too many drinks, a part of her mind thought that she should have tried to act normal, and that she should not have dropped the glass-filled napkins on the floor, and she probably should not have walked out of the room without a backward glance. But she did, and she kept walking out of the palace and through the winding streets of Spargus until she got lost, and then she climbed some stairs that led to a roof, and then some more stairs, and found a small niche between two roof gardens where she could sit. It was quiet out here, and cold as only a night in the desert could be, but that didn't matter so much right now. When she tipped her head back to rest it on the wall, she saw how thickly the stars clustered way out here, so much more brightly than they ever did in Haven City. Any other time she would have been filled with delight and awe, but right now she didn't want to feel much of anything.

Keira felt as though something inside her had broken. Despite her resolutions to forget her feelings for Jak, despite her promises to herself that she would only see him as a friend, here she was, breaking down over the fact that someone else had kissed him. It wasn't as if she had any claim on him other than childhood friendship, at least in the world's eyes. Her eyes suddenly filled up with big, sloppy tears, and no matter how many times she angrily rubbed them away, they kept flowing down her cheeks.

She sat there in her little niche for quite a while, wishing that she were anywhere but here, wishing that she weren't drunk, then wishing she had another drink, and wishing above all that she wasn't in love with Jak. After an hour or so, the alcohol started to wear off a bit and Keira realized belatedly that desert nights were very cold. Before she could push herself to her feet, she heard someone calling her name. Instinctively she opened her mouth to answer, but then she recognized Jak's voice. Her lips clamped shut automatically, and she huddled down deeper into her corner. Let him look for her, and never mind how dejected his voice sounded.

Tess found her in the morning, just as the sun was peeking over the cliffs surrounding the city. Keira opened her tear-swollen eyes to see the little ottsel peering worriedly at her with her paws resting gently on her arm. "You okay?" she asked softly.

Keira shook her head and immediately wished she hadn't – the world seemed to tilt sideways, and her eyes felt like they were swishing around, unattached to her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut again and rested her head in her hands.

"Oh, you poor thing," said Tess. "You've got a hell of a hangover, don't you?"

"That on top of everything else," muttered Keira. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it, and the morning sunlight pierced through her eyelids and right into her brain.

"You scared us, you know, walking off like that," the ottsel remarked. "Everyone was worried about you. A bunch of us went looking for you. You picked one heck of a hiding place." Tess nudged Keira, who stood up slowly and braced her hand on the wall. Gradually they made their way down to the street level, which was starting to fill up with people going about their daily business.

"So Jak looked pretty bummed when he came back from looking for you," Tess said conversationally. Keira's mouth tightened a bit, but she didn't respond. "He sat there and wouldn't talk to anyone, and he finally yelled at Daxter and stormed out. Nobody's seen him since then."

"Jak is the last thing I want to talk about right now," Keira answered with an air of finality. She shaded her eyes against the painful sunlight and climbed the short flight of steps leading up to the palace. As she and Tess stepped into the wooden elevator, Tess tried one more time.

"I've seen the way Jak looks at you. He doesn't look at Ashelin that way, ever. You need to give him a chance to –"

"I've given him a hundred chances," snapped Keira. "I don't care how he looks at me, he's never kissed me or done anything to show me that he cares about me. I'm done." She rubbed her hands over her face and through her hair in frustration and stomped out of the elevator.

Tess stood there for a moment, watching Keira walk up to her father and ask loudly when they could leave. "We both know that's not true," she said quietly.

Coming back to Haven was strange after spending a few days in Spargus. The difference between the two cities was deeply evident the minute Keira stepped off the hovercar. She hadn't realized just how  _dirty_ the air was until she'd breathed the clean air of the desert. One thing she did have to appreciate was the cooler air and the shade that the tall buildings cast as they walked towards the old Freedom HQ. Keira's mood had not improved even after taking a few hangover cures, and she felt even more irritable when she remembered that her apartment and racing garage had been crushed under the rubble of the palace. It was almost unbearable to think that she was stuck at the HQ with her father even after things were returning to normal.

After about a day of hoping it wouldn't be so bad, Keira felt like she'd rather smash her own head against the wall than stay another hour. There was simply nothing for her to  _do_. Now that the war was over and people were rebuilding, Keira was back to being a civilian. She thought they should have something for her to repair, but even her father would absentmindedly wave her aside when she asked for something to do. Worse still were the sympathetic looks she got when people thought she wasn't looking.

That night she decided that enough was enough. She would go down to the racing garages in the morning and see if there was anything to be salvaged. Her father and likely everyone else would forbid her if they knew she was going alone, but Keira didn't want to wait until some committee formed a city cleanup crew. Not only would going out give her something to do, but it would keep her mind off of Jak.

 _Isn't that what I always have to do?_ she thought to herself, throwing her clothes in a corner and crawling into bed.  _Keep him out of my mind, day in and day out. I wish he'd_ _ **stay**_ _out of my mind, since I'm so obviously not on his_. She ignored the hopeful little voice in her head that said she was being quite stubbornly wrong. "I'm moving on," she said out loud, clicking her bedside lamp off and pulling the covers over her head.

In the morning, Keira dressed quietly and slipped out of the building through a side entrance. She'd foregone her usual casual outfit and wore heavy boots and gloves and a fitted kevlar jacket. She packed a small backpack full of some essential tools, and around her waist clipped a thick utility belt. A short zoomer ride through the city brought her to her destination: the still smoking crater of the wrecked racing stadium. The sight still managed to make Keira's eyes well up a little bit. Her whole life had been in there, and all of her schematics, best tools, pet projects, and customized zoomers were buried beneath the wreckage.

"Maybe  _everything_  didn't get crushed," Keira said halfheartedly, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach as she looked at the giant pile of rubble before her. _Coming out here was stupid_ , she thought as she started to climb a pile of concrete slabs.  _I don't know what I thought I was going to find._  A few scratches on her hands later, she stood at the top of the pile, considering her next move. Climbing down was definitely out, since a large hole gaped just at the bottom of the concrete mound where she stood. It was so deep and dark that she couldn't see the bottom. She noticed though, that there was a small ledge down to the left, which disappeared between a few large, leaning beams – in the direction to where her garage used to be.

She turned around, hanging onto a rusty iron strut, and swung her legs down, expecting to land on the ledge. Unfortunately, the concrete had other ideas – the strut bent and snapped off in her hand, and the top slab slowly began to fall towards her. Keira dropped backwards as fast as she could, landing on her rear and scrambling desperately backwards on the ledge. When the first piece of concrete fell far enough, the rest of the pile began to follow. Each piece crashed down on the ledge, pulverizing the already fragile stone. Just as Keira thought she'd made it to solid ground, she found herself falling, and a scream tore out of her throat. Her hands scrabbled on the jagged walls of the hole, trying frantically to find something to hang on to. Just before sheer panic overwhelmed her, she landed on something solid, jarring her body so hard that it knocked the breath out of her lungs.

It was a long time before Keira could move again. She sat up painfully, trying to gauge her surroundings. Most of the concrete pile had fallen into the pit, but some of it still dangled at the edge where she'd fallen in. The place where she'd landed was a narrow ledge about a dozen feet down into the hole. Other than trying to climb the jagged walls, there was no way up. When Keira tried to stand, she gasped in pain and sat down again quickly. Her ankle had clearly been jarred in the fall – the bruises were visible even in the dim light filtering down from the top of the pit.  _How long was I out?_ she thought in bewilderment.  _It was morning when I left_.

Her hand moved to her hip where her comm unit was attached, intending to check the time and then radio for help, but her fingers met broken, lifeless plastic. She wrenched the whole thing off of its clip and groaned in dismay – her comm had been completely crushed, and judging by the pain in her hip, she'd landed on it. Keira threw the useless device aside in disgust and looked around again, trying to see a way out of her predicament. She'd had a coil of rope in her backpack, but she realized in horror that she'd accidentally left it sitting on the back of her zoomer. She sank down against the wall.

Keira pushed her hands through her hair, resting her head on her knees and trying to fight against the panic rising up in her chest.  _Think, Keira. Someone will notice that I'm missing. They'll know something's wrong when I don't come back._ She sat on her hands when she noticed them shaking.  _I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. For all they know I went back to Spargus. They'll never know to look here._

Just when Keira thought she would succumb to panic, a few small stones rattled down into the pit. She heard footsteps and some strange rustling at the lip of the pit. Hope bloomed in Keira for a brief second and she stood up as fast as her injuries would allow. Before she could call for help though, she heard a horribly familiar growl – a sound she usually associated with Metal Heads. Immediately she shrank down as close the wall as she could, clamping her hands over her mouth. Sure enough, she saw the silhouettes of two Stalkers appear at the top of the hole, emitting a faint, sickly glow from their skull gems. From the multiple growls and grunts she could hear, Keira assumed there were more assembling right above her.

 _Nowhere to hide_ , thought Keira, trying not to let herself dissolve into sheer panic.  _If I'm quiet maybe they'll go away._

Luck was not smiling on her that day.


	11. Chapter 11

Keira held her breath as more Metal Heads joined the first two at the edge of the hole. Their dark, snarling mass almost blocked out the light. Occasionally one would snap at another, jostling for a better look at their prey, and their growls echoed off the walls of the pit. Keira shrank closer to the wall, her hands scrabbling for a loose rock or  _something_  that would make her feel less helpless. Her movements seemed to stir the Metal Heads into a greater frenzy. Without warning, one leapt down towards her with its claws outstretched and jaws open wide.

It landed heavily on the ledge and struggled to gain balance on the narrow lip of rock. Keira took the opportunity to smash her mangled communicator into its face. It scrambled backwards with a roar and lost its footing, its claws scratching helplessly on the rock before it fell. Keira's heart pounded frantically, and her limbs ached with the sudden burst of adrenaline. Her head snapped back up towards the opening, anticipating another attack. But the Metal Heads seemed distracted – some were even turning away. Sudden bursts of gunfire took the rest of them running away from the edge.

Keira strained to listen, but the gunfire sounded muffled from where she was. It was only a few minutes before all sound ceased from above. She waited in agony for a few minutes, afraid to call out case the Metal Heads had killed whoever was up there.

And then someone was calling her name. Once, twice, three times, in a voice raw with fear, but still a voice that she knew.

"Jak, I'm down here!" she yelled.

He immediately appeared at the edge of the pit. "Are you ok?" he called. He looked incredibly relieved to see her, but his voice still held fear in it.

"I'll be fine, but I'm stuck. Can you throw down a rope or something?"

Instead, Jak jumped down and landed gracefully on his feet right next to her, just as if he'd hopped off a zoomer rather than a ten-foot drop. Before Keira could exclaim over it, he pulled her into his arms. She could feel his heart pounding to match hers.

"I thought I was too late," he said, muffled against her neck. "I thought…." His arms tightened around her once and then let her go. "Are you hurt?"

"My ankle, a little. I'll be ok," Keira answered, eager for a change of subject. "How did you find me? I didn't tell anyone where I was going."

"I got back to the city early and I was looking for you. The watchmen saw you leaving HQ and I took a lucky guess." Jak shook his head. "Keira, what the  _hell_  were you thinking, coming out here by yourself?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but I wanted to see if I could salvage anything from my garage," she snapped. "I needed to get my mind off of – off of… things." She was glad that it was probably too dark to see how red her face had gotten. "How are we supposed to get out of here?"

Jak looked at her for a few seconds, looking like he wanted to say something else, but then he stepped back. "Don't freak out, ok?" He closed his eyes, and then he  _glowed_.

Blue-white light suddenly suffused his whole body, illuminating the pit until Keira had to shield her eyes. When she opened them again, enormous glowing wings unfurled behind him, and he stood regarding her with an aura of deep calm. He held out a hand. "Trust me?" Jak's voice now had a strange, reverberating note to it, but it was still his.

She nodded and took his hand, and he gently put his arms around her. He was warm, but the light radiating from his body gave off a curiously cool sensation. "Hold on to me," he said in her ear. He bent his knees and pushed off the ledge, and Keira felt like she'd left her stomach behind. They were  _flying_.

Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and she clung tighter around his neck until their feet touched the ground. The coolness disappeared, and when Keira finally opened her eyes again, he was just Jak. He let go of her reluctantly and had an apprehensive look on his face.

"It's light eco," he said quickly. "It helps me balance the dark."

"That was amazing," Keira said, her mind alight with possibilities. "I thought it was all gone after what we found at Gol and Maia's citadel. I mean, this is a huge discovery! I knew you seemed different, more like yourself. And I can't believe you can  _fly_! "

Jak looked relieved. "I was going to tell you about it at the party, but we kind of got interrupted."

Keira's elation fell flat. "Ah, yeah." Here they were, back to oh-so-awkward square one. "Thanks for saving me," she said, not quite looking at him. "We should get back before it gets too dark." She turned around and started to walk carefully toward her zoomer, favoring her injured ankle.

Jak grabbed her arm before she got far. "Wait. Would you stop running from me?"

"If I'm running away, it's because I'm sick of getting hurt," she retorted, pulling her arm away and glaring at him.

To her surprise, Jak turned red to the tips of his ears. "Is this about the kiss with Ashelin? Because that wasn't – "

"I don't want to hear about it!" Keira yelled. "Yes, it's about that, but all the other back and forth  _bullshit_! I can't figure you out. We've gone back and forth so many times and I can't take the whiplash anymore, all right?"

"Will you listen to me for a second? I'm trying to  _apologize_ to you!" Jak exploded, fumbling for words and getting even redder. "I've been an ass, things have been so messed up, and then Ashelin, she just… she just sort of came at me and it was a stupid adrenaline thing for both of us. It was a mistake and all I could think about afterwards was how I wish it had been you!"

They stared at each other after his outburst, Jak breathing hard and Keira trying to ignore her pounding heart. "So what are you saying?" she finally asked.

"I'm saying you're right. No more whiplash." Jak abruptly closed the distance between them and kissed her. No hesitation this time, no hovering or slowness or uncertainty. One of his hands pressed to the small of her back, the other came up to cup her cheek. Keira found herself kissing him back, her hands gripping the collar of his shirt to pull him closer. The press of his lips on hers was graceless and heated, clumsy even as their teeth clicked together once or twice, but underneath the rough desperation, there was vulnerability. Keira felt it especially when he drew away to kiss her forehead, the way his hands shook just a little where they rested on her back.

"Look, I suck at this stuff," he mumbled, "but you… I don't know, you make me want to keep trying."

"We've been kind of stupid, haven't we?" Keira said breathlessly, running her fingers along Jak's shirt collar.

"What do you mean?"

"To wait this long." Before Jak could answer, Keira pulled his collar down until his lips crashed against hers again. He groaned and tangled both hands in her hair, kissing her over and over again until she felt half drunk with pleasure.

They only stopped when Keira realized that the sun had set completely. "We should probably go," she said, reluctantly drawing back. Jak kissed her one more time and then ran over to his zoomer.

"I'll race you back," he called, revving the engine.

Keira laughed and hopped onto her own ride, not waiting for him to count down. She took off through the city, hearing Jak yelling in protest behind her. Once they reached the more populated, lit-up areas, she glanced back to see him catching up to her, and he was  _laughing._

She beat him back to HQ with seconds to spare, but Jak didn't seem in the mood to be a poor loser. In fact, he seemed very willing to give her a victory kiss, and another, and another.

"We ok?" he asked, looking sidelong at her as they climbed the stairs and waited for the doors to open.

Keira squeezed his hand. "We're going to be more than ok."

_End ~_


End file.
